


Waiting In London

by NessaroseEast



Series: London Days [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3245246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NessaroseEast/pseuds/NessaroseEast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am lying on my deathbed when the Doctor arrives to talk to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting In London

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don't really like this part as much as the first, but... meh. If you find any errors, please tell me. Thanks for reading this!

I am lying in bed, old and withered, waiting to die. My children and grandchildren are in the television room, not talking, just watching. I hear that Tardis noise and assume they are watching old Doctor Who episodes on BBC Classic. The doorbell rings. More distant family has probably arrived. I hear the door open and two people talking, the door closing and someone is walking to the door of my room. They knock.

“Come in,” I say.

Ending 1:

The door opens and a tall skinny man with crazy hair shifts in. The Doctor. The Tenth Doctor.

“Hello,” he says to me. I smile. “Hello, Doctor.” He doesn’t smile. “You probably don’t remember. You bumped into my friend—“

“Rose,” I say, and he pauses, looking at me. “I walked into Rose. I told her to tell you thank you for me. Did she?”

He nods. “She did. And after she… Well, I came back to find out who you were. I followed you, watched your life. You had a good, long one.” He pauses and shoves his hands into his pockets. He walks closer to my bed and stops beside me. “I wanted to say thank you.”

I frown at him. “For what?”

He sighs slightly, looks down, and looks back up at me. “Thank you for thanking me.”

I smile. “Of course. You need to be told thank you, sometimes. You save us, so much, but you’re not thanked for it. You don’t need to thank me for thanking you, I wanted to thank you, you should be thanked. So again, thank you.”

He gives me a small smile. “You are brilliant.”

I grin wider. “Not really I’m not.”

Suddenly he gasps and bends over in pain. My smile drops and I try to sit up.

“No, no, no, no,” he says quickly throwing a hand up. “Stay, stay. I’ll be fine.”

I lie back down but continue to stare worriedly at him. “This one’s almost done, isn’t it?”

He straightens a bit and looks at me with surprise, his eyebrows expressing a good bit of it. “Why do you say that?”

I dig through my memories for the right one, then say, “At the end, you go and say goodbye to everyone you knew with this face. The radiation from the glass box that Wilfred was trapped in. You let him out, but you got radiated. This face is dying.” I reach out to the Doctor, and he gently takes my hand. “I liked this face. Not to say I don’t like any of the others.” He smiles slightly at that.

The Doctor steps back and places my hand onto my bed. “I should go.” He turns and walks to the door. He pauses and looks back at me.

I smile at him. “The next one is good, too.”

He smiles sadly. “I like this face, though.”

“Everyone changes, Doctor,” I say. “Perhaps we enjoy who we are now, but we can’t stay that way forever. You change, Doctor, you have before, and you will again. And yes, your changes are a bit more obvious, you face changing with your personality, but that doesn’t make you any less you. Who you are and who you were and the experiences you’ve had have made you the way you are and the way you will be. It’ll be okay. You’re just becoming the next person you’re supposed to be.”

He thinks for a moment and I watch him. “You’re right,” he says. He smiles at me. “Thank you.” He turns and walks out the door.

“You’re welcome, Doctor,” I say to the air as the Tardis leaves.

Ending 2:

The door opens and reveals a man in a jacket and button-up shirt topped with a bowtie. The Eleventh Doctor pushes his floppy hair out of his face and gives me a large fake smile.

“Hello,” he says to me.

“What’s wrong, Doctor?” I ask.

He looks at me, surprised for a moment, and then says, “Of course you would know who I am. You knew Rose. She said she had never seen you before.” He steps in ominously and I am suddenly reminded of Time Lord Victorious for a moment. He sits down on the edge of my bed and the change in him makes my stomach flip. He goes from Oncoming Storm to lost child so quickly I have a physical need to comfort him. I reach out to put my hand on his arm.

“What happened?” I ask him. “It doesn’t hurt so much anymore, talking about her,” he says. “About Rose. I miss her. It’s been a long time, and I’m almost used to the silence.” He turns to me. “I suppose you know what’s happened then?”

I dig through my mind, looking for what could have brought the Doctor to this. “The Ponds.” He nods.

“Doctor—“

“I came back and watched your life, after Rose was gone the first time. You’ve had a good one, a long one.”

“Do you need to talk about it, Doctor?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. I just miss them.”

“How long have they… been gone?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I don’t remember.” He stands suddenly. “I should go. A friend asked me to meet her.” He walks to the door, but turns around when he gets there. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

I raise my eyebrow at him. “For thanking me, when Rose said you thanked me. I did what I had to do.”

He turns, opens the door, and walks out, leaving me to my thoughts.


End file.
